36
AN EXPLORATIVE STUDY ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING (PBL) IN TEACHING READING
Burhan Fathurrohman
Language Education Department, Faculty of Humanities, Jenderal Soedirman University, Purwokerto, Indonesia
Dian Adiarti
Language Education Department, Faculty of Humanities, Jenderal Soedirman University, Purwokerto, Indonesia
Tuti Purwati
Language Education Department, Faculty of Humanities, Jenderal Soedirman University, Purwokerto, Indonesia
Abstract
This research explores the implementation of problem-based learning (PBL), aspects of PBL, and teacher’s and students’ perceptions about PBL. This research was conducted at SMA Negeri 2 Cilacap, taking 34 tenth grade students as the sample from X IPS 1 and an English teacher as a participant. The data were collected using observation, questionnaires, and interviews. The data were analysed using Miles and Huberman’s (1984) four types of analytical activity and presented descriptively. The result shows that the implementation of PBL in on the chosen sample is in line with the stages of PBL implementation entailing: 1) the teacher organizes the students to a problem, 2) the teacher organizes the students to learn, 3) the teacher as the participant helps the independent inquiry and groups, 4) the teacher helps the students develop and present the work, and 5) the teacher analyses and evaluates the problem-solving process. Then, the analysis of the aspects of PBL suggests such things as 1) the problem as the point in PBL, 2) the students’ discussion activities, 3) the teacher’s help in students’ discussion, 4) the students’ activeness, and 5) the teacher’s and students’ perception about PBL in reading skill. The teacher positively thinks that the materials in reading skills match with the PBL teaching model. It was found that PBL leads the students to discuss and train their activeness, ability to learn to solve problems, share ideas, and work cooperatively in a group. Another finding also denotes that they think that PBL is one interesting model which can support them to understand the text, because students can get insight from their friends and their teacher when having discussion.
Keywords: explorative research, problem-based learning, reading skill
Introduction
English is one of school subjects taught in Indonesia from elementary school until college level. In learning any language, there are four primary skills, namely: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Reading skill is an essential element in language learning that needs to be learned and mastered like other skills. The postulation of standard and basic competencies in education levels such as junior and senior high school levels states that learning English is to enable the students to understand the English texts. Reading skill is also necessary for the students to acquire knowledge and new information. Stone (2009) states that reading is a fundamental goal that students must master to be successful in school and life. Hence, not only in education where students have to enhance their knowledge through reading, but it can also be beneficial for students to inquire necessary information for their future and real life.
Received: 04/05/2021 Accepted: 08/28/2021 Available Online: 09/16/2021
37 The very reason why reading comprehension is essential for foreign language learners, especially English learners, is because the majority of publications like books and journals are written in English particularly those intended for higher education levels. To add or improve their new knowledge, students should be able to comprehend the texts well mostly written in English. Therefore, students have to have good literacy in reading English texts. Reading comprehension is the next level of reading because it deals with the contexts of text, grammar, vocabulary and so on.
In terms of curriculum implementation, Indonesia has implemented the 2013 curriculum in which the teachers are required to apply appropriate approaches, methods, techniques or models to teach English.
Many kinds of models can be used to implement the 2013 curriculum, one of which is Problem Based Learning (PBL). By and large, this learning model is used to to process the information stored in students’ minds compiling their knowledge related to the social world and surroundings. By implementing PBL, the students are trained to develop their own knowledge and abilities in identifying and solving problems. The stimulating problem can be authentic that truly occurs in society. By giving such authentic problems, the students are triggered to understand the given learning materials through a learning process. Then, the students can keep their understanding or information in their memory which can be recalled at any time.
PBL is a model that prioritizes the learning strategies using real-world problems since on the learning materials, they can learn about critical thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as acquire essential knowledge and concepts from the subject matter. To implement the PBL, there are some steps to follow, such as introducing the problems to the students, organizing the students, guiding individual and group investigations, encouraging the students to develop and present the work, and analysing and evaluating the learning process. Undoubtedly, the PBL implementation in every school is different because it depends on many factors, such as teacher, students, media, situation, and so on. In this research, SMA N 2 Cilacap was chosen because it is one of the schools implementing the PBL in teaching language skills, especially in reading. Thus, this research is solely focused on the the investigation of the actuation of PBL as postulated in the aformentioned research title: “The Implementation of Problem Based Learning (PBL) in Teaching English Reading Skill at SMA Negeri 2 Cilacap in the Academic Year of 2019/2020”.
The article investigates three interrelated questions including: 1) How PBL is implemented in the teaching of English reading skill to tenth grade students of SMA N 2 Cilacap? 2) What are the aspects of the PBL implementation that help the students improve their reading skill? And 3) What are the teacher’s and students’ perceptions on the implementation of PBL in reading skill?
Method
This research is classified into an explorative research. Explorative study is included as qualitative research. Explorative research aims at investigating the phenomenon of which little is known (Bogdan
& Taylor in Moeloeng, 1989). Bogdan and Taylor define qualitative research as a research that yields the data in written or oral words from observing people and their behaviour (in Moeloeng, 1989: 3). In this case, the researcher used explorative design mainly aims at exploring the phenomenon in the use of PBL in reading skill at tenth grade of SMA N 2 Cilacap in the academic year of 2019/2020.
Research Setting
This research was conducted at SMA Negeri 2 Cilacap. This school is located on Jl. Ketapang No 72, Gumilir, Cilacap Utara. The school programs consist of Natural science (MIPA), Social science (IPS), and Language (Bahasa). Firstly the researcher asked permission to the school, and then did some observation to the English class which implemented PBL. Afterwards, the researcher distributed questionnaires to the students and interviewed the teacher.
Data Sources
The research subjects were the students of tenth grade of SMAN 2 Cilacap in the academic year of 2019/2020. The researcher observed the learning processes in X IPS 1 and then gave the questionnaires to the students. Besides, the researcher took the English teacher as the research participant as the primary
38 source of information as she was directly involved in the teaching-learning process. She also provided the information required based on the items of the semi-structured interview.
Research Instrument
In conducting the research, the researcher used Classroom Observation Sheet. Ary et al. (2000) state that observation relies on narrative or words to describe the setting, behaviour, and interaction. The observation was used to interpret the setting, situation, and everything done in the observed classroom.
The observation was focused on PBL learning stages, teacher’s behaviour, and students’ behaviour. In addition to observation, the researcher used a questionnaire. A questionnaire is an instrument in which respondents provide written responses to questions or mark items indicating their responses (Ary, 2002).
The questionnaire was focused on teaching material, learning activities, teacher’s role, students’ role and perceptions about PBL. The questionnaire was written in Bahasa Indonesia to avoid language barriers. The last instrument used was an interview. The interview was held with the English teacher in the form of semi-structured interview. The advantage of this type of interview is enabling the interviewee’s and the interviewee’s perspective to inform the research agenda, giving rise to a more equal balance in the research relationship (Burns, 1999).
Data Collection Technique
Arikunto (2006) states that population is the whole subject of research. The population of this research was the tenth-grade students of SMA N 2 Cilacap in the academic year of 2019/2020. In conducting this research, the researcher used the sample selected using a purposive sampling technique. The sampling technique involves selecting certain units or cases based on a specific purpose rather than randomly (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003). The samples of this research were thirty six students from X IPS 1 of SMA N 2 Cilacap in 2019/2020. The researcher used X IPS 1 class because the teacher implemented PBL in that class and the topic was about reading skill, specifically on descriptive text. There were three types of data obtained, including observation (observing the class X IPS 1, and noted any important data from the teaching and learning process using observation sheet), questionnaire (giving the students questionnaires related to their perceptions on teacher’s PBL), and interview (interviewing the teacher about her using of PBL in her teaching of descriptive text).
Data Analysis Technique
In analyzing the data, the researcher followed the idea of Miles and Huberman (1984, p. 24), who specified four types of analytical activity and data collection activity to form an interactive process of qualitative data analysis. First deals with Data Collection, in which the researcher collected the data from the classroom observation, questionnaire, and interview from the specified sample and research participant. Second is concerned with Data Reduction, in which the researcher summarized the data, chose the main issues, and found the patterns, and omitted the unimportant issues. The researcher deducted the data by analysing, selecting, focusing, simplifying, and abstracting data from the field notes. If the data had not correlation with the focus of the research, the researcher had to eliminate it.
The data from classroom observation and interviews were summarized into narrative paragraphs while data from the questionnaire were counted on their percentage. The next is Data Display, in which the researcher displayed the qualitative data obtained from data reduction in order to know the patterns of data. Data from classroom observation and interview were displayed in the narrative text while data from the questionnaire were presented in tables by following the formula of (Arikunto, 2006, p. 63): P=
F : N x 100%
In which:
P: Percentage F: Frequency of Respondent N: Number of Sample 100%: Constant value
As the last phase, the researcher drew Conclusion and Verification, where the researcher made an initial conclusion about the data taken from classroom observation, interview, and questionnaire by comparing each of the data. This conclusion aimed to answer the research questions posted above.
39 Data Validation
To validate the data in this research, the researcher used a triangulation, known as “a qualitative cross- validation assessing the sufficiency of the data according to the convergence of multiple data sources or multiple data collection procedures” (Warsa in Sugiyono 2010, p. 372). Hence, the researcher conducted triangulation to get the credibility of the three kinds of data gathering. The researcher used a triangulation technique to test the data validity by comparing the data taken from the result of classroom observation, teacher interviews, and the questionnaire.
Findings
Observation Results
The observation results of PBL implementation in X-IPS 1 of SMA Negeri 2 Cilacap deal with several aspects of the implementation of PBL in the reading class as well as teachers’ and students’ activities.
The observations were done five times in the class consisting of 34 students and an English teacher.
The first observation was performed on 30 October 2019 which lasted for one and a half an hour (14.00 - 15.30). The teacher started her class by greeting the students and checking their attendance. In pre- teaching stage, the teacher informed the students that the topic to be discussed was Descriptive Text.
The teacher informed the learning goals of this topic, such as the students were able to understand well the definition of descriptive text, structure, language features, and text content. She asked the students whether they knew about Descriptive text and they had learned Descriptive text before. During the teaching activity, the teacher asked the students to make groups of five or six students. The teacher wrote the students’ names on the whiteboard to divide them into 6 groups. She also chose the leader of each group. Then, she gave each group a discussion sheet. The discussion sheet contains the groups’
members, 3 numbers to be filled, and an example of descriptive text followed by some questions. Then, she gave instruction to the students “Okay students, now I want you to write three things you want to know about the descriptive text.” The teacher gave 45 minutes for the students to discuss it with others.
In this step, the teacher applied the first stage of PBL, that is organizing the students to a problem. The problem means the things that the students wanted to know about the descriptive text. It could be the definition, structure, function, etc. The students seemed to have understood the teacher’s instruction because nobody asked about the instruction. The teacher also stimulated the students by asking, “Do you know the structure of the descriptive text?”, and “Do you know the function of descriptive text?”
The teacher’s questions really helped the students to conclude what they wanted to know about the descriptive text. There were some groups which do the discussion actively, but the others looked passive or even they talked to their friends. The teacher also moved from one to another group to help the students to check their work as well to control the classroom activity. Some students asked the teacher about some vocabularies because some of them did not bring their dictionary.
In this meeting, the researcher argued that the duration was too long for the students to conclude three things about the descriptive text. It made the students talk about other topics and the class became noisy.
The teacher looked to have difficulty overcoming this situation. She tried to control the class by asking,
“Okay students, listen. If you have done your task, you can read the example of descriptive text entitled Way Kambas”. The students followed the teacher’s instruction by doing silent text reading proposed by Pilippot and Graves (2009). Then, the teacher explained that for the next meeting the activities would be the same as the class they had in that session. She also reminded the students to find more information about descriptive text to bring their dictionary for the discussion in to the next meeting.
In the post-teaching activity, the class ended after the students had written the task given on the discussion sheet and the teacher informed the students that the next meeting activity would be group discussion again. In this meeting, two of the stages of PBL had been applied. Those were first on stage 1, where the teacher oriented the students to problem. It could be seen when the teacher informed the students about their learning goals and explained the students’ next task. The second was on stage 2 where the teacher organized the students to learn. It could be seen when the teacher asked them to start
40 their discussion to determine the things they wanted to know about descriptive text as the basic problem to learn.
The second observation of PBL implementation was conducted on 31st October 2019 which lasted for the same length of time as the previous one. As usual, the teacher started the lesson, checked their attendance, and reminded the students about the activities in the previous meeting. In pre-teaching activity, the teacher reminded the students about the previous meeting, when the students were asked to write down three things they wanted to know about descriptive text on their discussion sheet. In this meeting, the teacher asked the students to join the same group as in first meeting and to open the discussion sheet.
During the teaching activity, the teacher gave instruction, “After you have the things you wanted to know about descriptive text, now I want you to answer it. You can read the book to find the answer and discuss it with your friends”. She asked the students to continue their discussion in 50 minutes. The students followed the teacher’s direction. They discussed in groups by sharing ideas, references in the book, and vocabulary. The leader of each group wrote their findings on discussion sheet. There was one group that did not discuss about the topic but talking with their friends. So the teacher had to remind them to finish their task. The teacher also asked the students to read a descriptive text on their discussion sheet entitled
“Way Kambas” and answer the questions about the text. There were five questions related to the text.
The process during teaching activity ended when the students finished answering their three questions about descriptive text and five questions about “Way Kambas”.
The activity on this meeting was full of group discussion. The teacher limited the discussion for sixty minutes. The students discussed the given tasks in their group actively. They used their book as the learning source. Sometimes, they asked to the teacher about the things they were still confused and the teacher explained clearly from one group to another group. Some students were confused about how to express their ideas in English. They asked their teacher: “Excuse me Ma’am, how to say: tense yang paling sering digunakan dalam descriptive text adalah simple present tense?” and “What is language feature Ma’am?” The researcher argued that some students lacked of knowledge in expressing their sentences in English. So the teacher needed to teach them repeatedly. For post-teaching activity, the teacher informed the students that the next meeting activity would be a presentation, so they needed to prepare everything for it. The teacher explained to the students that they needed to divide their members to present their results of discussion because each student had to have their turn to speak in front of the class. The leader of each group then divided their member and their turn. In this second meeting, the teacher implemented the third stage of PBL, where the teacher helped the students to be independent inquiry and group as well as encouraged them to collect appropriate information related to the topic. It could be seen when the students were doing discussion, some of them asked the teacher to help them in expressing their ideas in English and when the teacher asked them to find the information from another sources.
The third observation of PBL implementation was conducted on Wednesday, 6th November 2019. The class also lasted for the same length of time. The teacher started the lesson by checking the students’s attendance, and reminded them that the learning activity would be in the form of presentation. The teacher staerted pre-teaching activity by choosing 3 groups randomly to present their discussion results.
The teacher randomized the selection because she wanted the students to be ready anytime. The time allotment for the presentation was 60 minutes, which means that each group had maximum of 12 minutes to present their work. During the whole teaching process, the students’ activity was full of presentation.
In presenting their discussion results, they introduced their group members first. Then, they continued with mentioning 3 things they wanted to know about descriptive text and and their answers. Another group did the same things. Some points the students wanted to know about descriptive text include: 1) What is descriptive text? 2) What is the function of descriptive text? 3) What are the characteristics of descriptive text? 4) How is the structure of descriptive text? 5) What are language features of descriptive text? 6) What tense is used in descriptive text? 7) How to make a descriptive text?
41 Each group had three questions related to the descriptive text. There were differences from one to another, but there were similarities as well. In the presentation section, the teacher’s role was as a facilitator. It means that the teacher gave some questions to all groups. It made the whole class discussed the questions together and the teacher checked their understandings about descriptive text. Some questions asked by the teacher were: 1) Where does the descriptive text usually found? 2) What tense does the descriptive text use? 3) Which one of the paragraphs of text “Way Kambas” is the identification?
4) Which one of paragraphs of text “Way Kambas” is the description? 5) Could you give me an example about the use of simple present tense? 6) Could you mention some of adjectives to describe people? 7) Could you mention some adjectives to describe things?
In this teaching activity, the teacher implemented the fourth stage of PBL that the students developed and presented their work. The teacher also implemented teaching reading activity proposed by Philippot and Graves (2009) that was in the form of discussion. In presentation, the teacher involved the whole class to discuss the materials together. There were a problem that faced by teacher in this activity. That is, the class sometimes became too noisy because some students looked too passive. There was no post- teaching activity in this meeting. The teacher only told the students that the next meeting would be a test. The material would be from the previous teaching and learning process about descriptive text.
The fourth observation of PBL implementation was conducted on 7 November 2019. The class likewise lasted for the same length as the previous class. As usual, the teacher the class by asking the students to prepare a piece of paper on which to write their answers. In this meeting, the teacher implemented the fifth stage of PBL that was evaluating the students’ understanding about descriptive text by conducting a test. The test was compiled by teacher from many sources, such as teacher’s book and internet. It contained twenty questions divided into 3 parts. First part consists of four questions asking about descriptive text in general including its definition, function, structure, and language features. These questions match with the basic competences in the teacher’s lesson plan that students have to be able to differentiate the social function, text structure, and language feature of descriptive text.
Second part consists of ten questions related to some descriptive texts. Third part was in the form of essay related to a descriptive text consisting of six questions. The second and third parts were also matched with the basic competence in which the students have to be able to to find and understand about the information in a text. The test was used as the assessment. The students were given 90 minutes to answer the questions individually on a piece of paper. While the students were doing the test, the teacher advised them to do it honestly. At the end of the test, the teacher told the students that the next meeting would be used to check their test answers and discussed them together. After the students completed the test, the test results were collected by the teacher to be discussed and corrected in the following meeting.
The fifth observation of PBL implementation was conducted on 20 November 2019. After doing apperception, including saying Assalamualaikum (Islamic greeting) and checking students’ attendance.
The teacher then distributed the students’ work from the previous meeting. The students had to correct their friend’s work to avoid cheating. In correcting the students’ test, the teacher used classroom discussion. The teacher started the discussion from number 1 of the questions. The teacher randomly chose one student to read the question and answer it for number one until number 4. The teacher asked some students to read the questions loudly. This activity is in line with Philippot and Graves’ teaching reading activity that was oral reading by the students. In this activity, the teacher also had a chance to correct the students’ pronunciation. To check the students’ understanding, the teacher also asked some questions like “Do you understand about this sentence?”, “Until this point, any question?”, and “Is there any unclear sentence?” When the students did not understand about something, the teacher would explain it once more. Some students also asked about some things like “How to read US$445 million Ma’am?”, the meaning of some words in Bahasa Indonesia, and so on. After the discussion and correction activity were finished, the teacher asked the students to collect the results to be given the scores by the teacher.
42 The last meeting consisted of the last stage of PBL that was analysing and evaluating the problem solving process. In addition, in this post-teaching activity the teacher used questioning and discussion activity, by asking the students to answer test questions and making whole class discussion. The researcher also used this meeting to distribute questionnaires to the students. So, after the teaching and learning process were finished, the researcher gave the questionnaire to each student. The students were given 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Then, the questionnaires were collected to the researcher to be analysed.
Observation Sheet Results of PBL implementation
During the observation, the researcher also completed the observation sheet. The observation sheet consists of some aspects in the PBL implementation. The first result was the aspects of PBL learning stages. The teacher implemented PBL on the first three meetings while the fourth and fifth meetings were used to evaluate the students. The main activity on the first meeting was group discussion to organize the students’ to a problem, that was determining three points that the students wanted to know related to descriptive text. On this meeting, the teacher implemented the first stage of PBL and also the second stage that was organizing the students to learn. The main activity of second meeting was group discussion to solve problem. One stage of PBL had been implemented in this meeting, that was, the third stage of PBL where the teacher helped them in their independent inquiry and group. The teacher helped the students in their discussion to solve their problems. The third meeting was presentation. Each group presented their work in front of the class. This activity was an implementation of stage fourth of PBL, that was the students develop and present the work. In the fourth meeting, the teacher conducted a test to check the students’ understanding about the descriptive text. It was corrected and discussed in the fifth meeting. So, in the fourth and fifth meetings, the teacher implemented the fifth stage of PBL, analysing and evaluating the problem solving process.
The second aspect was from teacher’s point of view. The teacher explained to the students about learning objectives in the first meeting and presented the problem to be discussed in the students’ group discussion. It could be seen on the first meeting when the teacher helped them to conclude the result about descriptive text. The teacher guided the students in their group discussion and she also gave feedbacks, suggestions, and explanations. On the second meeting, the teacher helped the students to plan their discussion results to be presented in the following meeting. The students’ presentations were used as an evaluation for the teacher to check the students’ understanding about the material.
The third aspects were in the students’ point of view. From the first until the fifth meeting, the students followed the teaching learning process actively, but some of them looked passive and others were too noisy. They answered the teachers’ questions well and focused on what the teacher was saying. In their group discussion, the srudents also actively asked their friends and their teacher about the topic, so that they got feedback or insight from the teacher and their friends besides from reading books. They also shared their knowledge with other students. In the third meeting, they presented their discussion results in front of the class. The teacher serving as a facilitator, gave them some questions to check their understanding as well as to evaluate their group discussion.
Questionnaire Results of PBL implementation
The questionnaire was distributed to the students on the fifth observation on 20 November 2019 after the class was finished. The results were:
1. There were 32% students who are strongly agree, 68% agree that teaching model of using PBL done by the teacher is interesting.
2. There were 62% students strongly agree, 38% agree that teaching model using PBL trains the students to share their ideas.
3. There were 32% students strongly agree, 68% agree that teaching model using PBL motivates the students to learn English.
4. There were 21% students strongly agree, 76% agree, and 3% students disagree that teaching model using PBL is clear and easy to be understood.
43 5. There were 38% students strongly agree, 56% agree, and 6% disagree that teaching model using
PBL helps the students to learn English.
6. There were 26% students strongly agree, 59% agree, and 15% that the material in PBL teaching related to the problems the students face in their real life.
7. There were 88% students strongly agree, 12% agree that the teaching model using PBL develops students solving problem skill in discussion.
8. There were 47% students strongly agree, 53% agree that teaching model using PBL helps the students become more active in their learning.
9. There were 59% students strongly agree, 41% agree that teaching model using picture, LCD- projector and internet is interesting.
10. There were 74% students strongly agree, 26% agree that teaching model by using PBL increase students cooperation in group.
11. There were 32% students strongly agree, 68% agree that teaching model by using PBL supports students’ skill in understanding a text.
12. There were 53% students strongly agree, 47% agree that teaching model by using PBL increases students creative-thinking skill.
13. There were 79% students strongly agree, 21% agree that teaching model by using PBL makes the students communicating with their friends and the teacher.
14. There were 32% students strongly agree, 65% agree, and 3% students disagree that teaching model using PBL is planned systematically.
15. There were 35% students strongly agree, 65% agree that they can follow the teacher’s PBL teaching well.
Interview Results of PBL implementation
In this data collection stage, the researcher interviewed the teacher of class X-IPS 1, in order to know her opinion and perceptions about PBL and the things inside the implementation of PBL. The interview was held on 21 November 2019. The points taken from the interview were: first, in her teaching, the teacher used many kinds of the teaching model. The teaching models were related to scientific approach implemented in curriculum 2013. One of the models was PBL. The teacher thought that PBL was good to be implemented, because it made students actively learn through their problems in a lesson as well as solve it to enrich their knowledge. In selecting PBL as the teaching model, the teacher was selective in choosing the lesson to get the effective results in teaching. According to her, PBL could be effective in reading skill, because the model made the students have a discussion with their friends. So it matched with the scientific approach principles in curriculum 2013, where to collect information in learning activities, the students had to follow the stages including: questioning, associating, and communicating.
The second points were related to pre-teaching. The teacher considered the materials and the time allocation before choosing PBL to be implemented. The materials should consist of topics which could be discussed in groups. Some topics could be found in the field of reading skill, for example, from the English texts. Because PBL implementation needed more than one meeting, the teacher should consider the time of implementation. It needed at least two or three meetings. The teacher should plan the classroom activity well to getting the best results. For the materials, the teacher used books from the government, and find additional materials in the internet to add more horizons. In evaluation, the teacher could test the students some questions in their presentation to check the students’ understanding. In addition, the teacher could alsp use post-test in the end of PBL implementation. The teacher usually used presentation, report, or test as the assessment.
The third points were about whilest-teaching. The teacher thought that the use of technology could support the teaching. She usually used LCD projector in her teaching. In PBL, the teacher thought that teacher’s role was just as a facilitator. It means that the teacher did not need to explain the material in front of the class, but she just explained what the students have to do or what students asked, helped the students’ discussion, and guided the learning by giving instructions to the students. According to the teacher, the students were enthusiastic in PBL teaching model. It could be seen in their discussion where they actively shared their ideas and asked their friends about the materials. The teacher needed the
44 students to be active in the discussion. The teacher could push them to be active by making a presentation. She gave the students some questions related to descriptive text as the following:
“Jadi teks deskriptif biasa ada di mana ya?”
“Teks deskriptif menggunakan tense apa?”
“Jika menggunakan simple present tense, contohnya bagaimana?”
“Coba berikan contoh tempat yang bisa di deskrisikan?”
“Berikan contoh kata sifat yang biasa digunakan untuk mendeskripsikan tempat?”
“Berikan contoh kata sifat untuk mendeskripsikan seorang!”
“Berikan contoh kata sifat untuk mendeskripsikan benda!”
The last points were about post-teaching. The teacher did evaluation in the end of the PBL implementation. The evaluation could be in the form of report or test. The points of her evaluation were students’ discussion result, students’ understanding, and her teaching activity. According to the teacher, the result of her teaching by using PBL was quite good although the students’ scores in test were different. There were some students who had good scores, but some of them had scores under the minimum score. The problems that appeared in the PBL implementation were: some of the students were too active and others were passive, specifically in the discussion session. The noisy students usually talked about other topics with their friends, they even laughed in the middle of the discussion. It made the class become too noisy. Meanwhile, the passive students sometimes were just silent during the discussion. To anticipate this problem, the teacher had a solution. She divided the noisy students in different groups so that they would not be too noisy. The same thing was done with the passive students.
They were divided them into groups, combined with smart or active students. It was done to stimulate them to learn together in order to decrease their passiveness.
The next problem faced by the teacher was that the students lacked of English vocabularies. In language learning, vocabulary is very important to master. In addition, the reading class used texts to be learned.
If the students could master the vocabulary, they would understand the text better. So, the teacher asked the students to always bring their dictionary in her lesson. The last problem was about the time. In PBL implementation, the teacher needed at least two or three meetings. It could not be implemented in just one meeting. She had to think about the meeting. If the meetings were enough, the teacher also should plan the classroom activities for three meetings and prepare things needed in the implementation. The solution from her was that the teacher could adjust the amount of the material. It could minimize the discussion time for the students in their group discussion. Hence, the teacher could decrease the number of the meeting.
Discussion
The implementation of PBL in the teaching of English reading skill
The data on the implementation of PBL in reading class were analysed based on Rusmono’s (2014) stages of PBL implementation. The implementation of the PBL was framed in some stages stages. The first stage of this PBL implementation can be called a pre-teaching activity (Philippot & Graves, 2009), in which the teacher tried to activate students’ background knowledge about descriptive text as well as to check the students’ readiness. This is also in line with Nunan’s (2003) notion mentioning that a reader’s background knowledge enables to influence reading comprehension so that the students could understand the text in the teaching well. The background knowledge includes the students’ experience in real life and educational experience. The main activity was when the students had a group discussion determining the things they wanted to know about the descriptive text as the basic problem. According to Rusmono (2014), this was one of PBL stages where the students found their problems to be discussed in the next meeting. It is also supported by Bound and Feletti’s (1997) proposition outlining the characteristics of PBL in which two of them include using stimulus materials to help the students discuss an important problem, question, or issue, as well as presenting the problem as a simulation of professional practice or real-life situation (p. 2). In the observed teaching, the teacher used students’
problems as the basis of the teaching learning process. Another characteristic was the teacher asked the students to work cooperatively in group to finish the task. The teacher allocated the first meeting to the
45 students to establish the students’ problems. The lesson ended when each group had written three things they wanted to know about the descriptive text as their problems in learning descriptive text. Afterwards, the teacher asked the students to prepare the next meeting that was answering their questions in the same group discussion.
The teacher organizes the students to learn. The teacher did this stage in the first meeting. She asked the students to write three things they wanted to know about the descriptive text. She helped the students in deciding the problem as their basic lesson. She also stimulated the students by asking “Do you know the structure of the descriptive text?”, and “Do you know the function of descriptive text?” The teacher’s questions really helped the students to conclude what they wanted to know about the descriptive text.
This activity done by the teacher was in line with the statements from Ibrahim and Nur (2014, p. 242) saying that the purposes of PBL are: to help the students develop their ability to think and solve problems, to learn the role of adults through their inclusion in real experiences or in their discussion, and to become autonomous students. The teacher firstly helped the students to formulate their problem to be learned. The teacher also moved from one group to another to help the students and to check their work. Helping the students to formulate three things related to descriptive text matches with Bound and Feletti (1997) stating that it is the teacher who makes the students able to identify their own needs and appropriate use of available sources.
The next stage of PBL as proposed by Rusmono (2014) is to help students in independent and collective inquiry. This stage is conducted in the second meeting. After the students had their own problems discussed, the teacher asked them to search for information to answer the problems and encouraged the use of a dictionary. The teacher helped the students’ discussion by checking from group to group. The teacher also asked the students to read a descriptive text on their discussion sheet entitled “Way Kambas”
and answer the questions about it. In this activity, the teacher applied a reading activity proposed by Philippot and Graves (2009, p. 31) in the form of silent reading by the students. The teacher asked a student to read and comprehend the text. She also encouraged the students to use a dictionary if they did not know the meaning of the words in the text. This encouragement from the teacher was one effort done by the teacher to build a strong vocabulary based on the opinion from Nunan (2003), because strong vocabulary is important for the students to comprehend the text.
In the third meeting, the teacher helped the students develop and present the work. The teacher asked the students to present their discussion results in front of the class. Two teaching reading activities (discussion and questioning) as proposed by Philippot and Graves (2009) were also implemented in this meeting. The teacher asked the groups to present their discussion results successively. Firstly, they mentioned three things they wanted to know about descriptive text. Then, they continued to explain their discussion results. In the presentation section, the teacher’s role was as a facilitator. It means that the teacher just gave some stimulating questions to the groups and all students. It made the whole class discussed together and the teacher could check their understanding about descriptive text. The teacher analysed and evaluated the problem-solving process. This last PBL stage proposed by Rusmono (2014) was done by the teacher in the fourth and fifth meeting. The teacher asked the students to complete the test in 90 minutes of the fourth meeting. In the fifth meeting, the teacher distributed the students’ test to be corrected. She used whole class discussion activity proposed by Philippot and Graves (2009, p. 31) to correct the students’ works and also to check their understanding and problem-solving result. The students were asked to read the question and answer it. They were chosen randomly one by one to answer the question. The teacher also used supporting reading activity proposed by Philippot and Graves (2009) if there were students who answered the questions incorrectly. It was like she tried to reread the part of the text to stimulate the students to answer correctly.
Based on the researcher’s observation and analysis, it could be concluded that the teacher had already implemented the five stages of PBL in line with the opinion of Rusmono (2014). The PBL implemented by the teacher was also in line with the characteristics of PBL set by Bound and Feletti (1997) which include using stimulus materials to help the students discuss an important problem, presenting the problem as a practice, having the students work cooperatively, and getting the students to identify their
46 own needs. Furthermore, the purposes of PBL proposed by Ibrahim and Nur (2014) were achieved in her teaching. Those are helping students to develop their ability to think and solve the problems, learning the roles of adults through their inclusion in real life experiences, and becoming autonomous students.
The teacher also used the classroom procedure of teaching reading proposed by Philippot and Graves (2009) in the pre-reading activity which covers activating or building background knowledge, whilst reading and silent reading, reading to students, supporting reading, and oral reading by the students, and post reading activity (questioning and discussion). In her implementation of teaching using PBL, the teacher followed the teaching reading principles proposed by Nunan (2003) ranging from exploiting reader’s background knowledge, building a strong vocabulary based, and teaching for comprehension.
The aspects of the PBL implementation helping the students in their reading skill
There were several aspects that helped the students in their reading skill, They include: 1) the problem as a main point in PBL. One characteristic in PBL was that the students were enabled to learn from the problem. It was able to train the students about several things such as the student’s ability to think and solve problems to become autonomous learners. It matches with the PBL purpose from Ibrahim and Nur in Rusman (2014) that one purpose of PBL is to make the students become an autonomous learner.
The second aspect is that the students’ discussion. After having the problem to be learned, the students had discussion with their group. In the discussion, the students shared ideas and knowledge with their friends. They also shared the knowledge about vocabularies that helped others in understanding texts.
The discussion that the students had matched with the characteristics of PBL proposed by Bound and Felleti (1997), requiring the students work cooperatively as a group.
The third aspect is that the teacher helps students in discussion by moving from one group to another and asked whether they had problems in the discussion. It matches with the theory from Ibrahim and Nur in Rusman (2014) stating that one goal of PBL is the teacher helps the students to develop their ability to think and solve problems. When the students asked to the teacher, the teacher answered it stimulatingly. Teacher’s assistance made the students able to build their own knowledge. Therefore, the students can be an autonomous learner as the purpose of PBL.
The fourth aspect deals with the students’ activeness. They discussed with their group well, it was shown in the first and second meetings when they had group discussion to solve the problem, and they also cooperatively shared their ideas with their friends when they found information to answer the questions.
These findings match with one characteristic of PBL proposed by Bound and Feletti (1997), stressing on having that students work cooperatively as a group. By having solid group discussion, the students were also trained to conclude their own needs and they were encouraged to solve it by themselves. This kind of activity is in line with the PBL’s purposes proposed by Ibrahim and Nur in Rusman (2014), emphasizing on helping students to develop their ability to think and solve problem as well as helping the students become autonomous learners. If they were confused, they would ask the teacher for guidance.
Based on the researcher’s observation, the students had motivation to solve and find solutions for a problem, and they also thought critically every problem they faced in their group discussion. It matches with Arikunto’s (2009) learning aspect in the area of cognitive, affective, and psychomotoric aspects.
This idea suggests that the students had knowledge, the desire to share ideas, and the curiosity to get other knowledge. It also shows that the students were perseverant in learning and had high curiosity to find answers to every problem. The researcher also found that the students had good interactions, both with their teacher and their friends. By asking the teacher and their friends, the students were expected to get clear explanation and additional knowledge about the material. In the end, the reseacher concludes that the students were enthusiastic in following the teaching and learning process.
Teacher’s and students’ perceptions about the PBL in reading skill
This part discusses the teacher’s and students’ perception about PBL implementation. The analysis was based on the data taken from teacher’s interview and students’ questionnaires. According to Warga
47 (1983), perceptions are based on past experiences. The teacher and the students indeed had their own perceptions about PBL based on what had been done in the teaching and learning process.
Firstly, the researcher found out that the teacher thought that teaching model was important. It could be used to teach the students in varied ways especially in explaining the material. The teacher usually implemented PBL teaching model. She thought that not all kinds of material could use PBL effectively.
The material in reading skill could be matched with PBL. In implementing the teaching model, the teacher should consider several things, such as the available material and time. The material could be found in the textbooks or other sources like internet. She added that the material which matched with PBL was the one that could be discussed by the students in group. PBL implementation needed more than one meeting which was around two until five meetings. So, it could be another consideration in deciding to apply PBL. The teacher checked the students’ understanding in PBL implementation in their presentation. She usually gave them questions related to their presentation. She also made variation in her teaching in the students’ task, such as using presentation or discussion report. The teacher explained that the teaching and learning activity using PBL was interesting. It could train the students to learn to solve problems, share ideas, and work cooperatively in a group. Based on the interview with the teacher, the researcher concluded that the teacher had positive perception about PBL.
Secondly, the researcher analysed the students’ perceptions about PBL. Based on the researcher’s observation, interview with the teacher and the students’ questionnaires, the researcher found that the students were enthusiastic when following her teaching. They actively discussed with their friends and sometimes asked the teacher. It was in line with statement of Bound and Feletti (1997) about the characteristic of PBL that is having students work cooperatively as a group. By having group cooperation, the students could get the insight from their friends who share their ideas and knowledge.
The teacher also pushed the students to be active in discussion. She sometimes gave stimulating questions to the students to make the discussion alive in the right track. The teacher did the evaluation at the end of the implementation. The aspects of her evaluation were on the students’ understanding and her teaching activities. The teacher claimed that the students’ learning result based on PBL teaching model was already good.
From the questionnaire, the researcher found out that the PBL implemented by the teacher was interesting to the students, as shown in a questionnaire in which 32% of students strongly agree and 68
% agree with it. All of the students also agree that PBL trained them to share their ideas (62% strongly agree and 38% agree). They thought that PBL motivated them to learn English (32% strongly agree and 68% agree). The teaching model using PBL was clear and easy to understand (21% strongly agree, 76%
agree, and 3%disagree). Most of the students thought that teaching model using PBL helped them learn English, especially in reading skills (38% strongly agree, 56% agree, and 6% disagree). All of the students believed that PBL developed their problem-solving skills in discussion (88% strongly agree and 12% agree). They also agree that PBL helped them become more active in their learning process (47% strongly agree and 53% agree). PBL increased their cooperation in group discussion (74% strongly agree and 26% agree). PBL supported them to understand the text through group discussion (32%
strongly agree and 68% agree). PBL also increased their creative thinking skill in group discussion (53%
strongly agree and 47% agree).
Conclusion
The PBL implementation in teaching English reading skill on the tenth-grade students of SMA Negeri 2 Cilacap in the academic year of 2019/2020 was in line with the stages of PBL implementation mentioned by Rusmono (2014). It covers 1) the teacher organizes the students to a problem, 2) the teacher organizes the students to learn, 3) the teacher helps the independent inquiry and groups, 4) the teacher helps the students to develop and present the work, and the last, 5) the teacher analyses and evaluates the problem solving process. The aspects of PBL which helped the students in their reading skill were: the problem as a main point in PBL, the students’ discussion, the teacher’s help in students’
discussion, and the students’ active participations.
48 The teacher’s and students’ perception about PBL in reading skill matks that the teacher thought that PBL was one of good models in teaching reading skill. The teacher added that materials in reading skill match with the PBL teaching model because it made the students discuss and train their activeness, ability to learn to solve problem, share ideas, and work cooperatively in a group. The students thought that PBL was an interesting model which could support them to understand the text, because in discussion the students could get insight from their friends and their teacher. They also thought that PBL could help them to learn English and train them to share their ideas, work cooperatively, solve problems, and learn through the problems. Thus, both the teacher and the students had positive perception on PBL.
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